Sorry for remaining MIA. Hubby and I are dealing with multiple fires on the home front – and making only minimal progress in quelling the flames. However, one daughter may be starting to ‘get it’.

Grace, our college freshman daughter has struggled with fitting into the college experience all year long. I try to impart red pill wisdom and give her Godly counsel whenever possible. It often seems she doesn’t hear anything I am saying. However last week she mentioned she had finally found (I didn’t realize she was even looking) some red pill dating blogs that gave her insight into Hook-Up lies; a good first step. Yesterday she sent me the following essay (emphasis added by me), written by a friend of hers at school. It is encouraging that she is befriending and finding common ground with students willing to stand up against the ‘zero responsibility’ culture and also that she shared it with me, which was poignant since she has gone out of her way to ‘fit in’ and although she has never blamed others for her decisions, I know they go against what she knows is acceptable.

The Endless Attempt to Fit In

The dream was over and in reality I was lying in my small cot in my dark dorm room. The screen of my phone blinded me with a burning white light. I could barely make out the time through my adjusting eyes: 1:47 AM. It was only the third day of freshman orientation week, so I was still pretty uncomfortable with my new living conditions. I noticed the incoming call and after a few muttered curse words, I answered with a breathless and bewildered hello. Apparently, the voice on the other end was telling me that my roommate was so intoxicated that he couldn’t walk and was turning an ashy purple. My initial reaction was “Why should I care?” He was being an idiot and needs to be responsible for his own poor choices. The scene from “Drumline” pops into my head when Nick Cannon is asked why his roommate is late and Cannon replies, “I ain’t his mama.” It’s the same case. I can’t hold his hand through all of his decisions and take him everywhere he needs to go. But I can’t just leave him; I care too much. “Shit” I muttered under my breath as I ran down the stairs in my pajama bottoms, fumbling with a t-shirt as I went. I found him leaned up against the back wall of my dorm, standing in a puddle of his own vomit.

The stench of cheap vodka, stale beer, dried vomit and sweat stopped me right in my tracks. He looked as bad as he smelled, with his eyes bloodshot, his normal tan hue resembling the pale hue of a corpse. I was so scared; I had never been in any situation remotely close to this. My breaths started to get short and shallow, I tried to rack my brain for any sort of tip as to what to do in this situation. I came across the oh-so familiar blue exclamation point on my new wristband. Of course! They warned us that this might happen during the presentations throughout freshman orientation week. So, I did what the bracelet told me to do: call 911. His drunken stupor suddenly snapped as he heard the sirens approaching us. “Why the FOCK would yew call? I’m do . . . I’m . . . I’m fine,” he so eloquently protested to me as he fell on top of me while stifling a belch. As the four firefighters, two R.A.’s, and police officer came down the slope towards us, I felt like a hero. I used what I learned in a high pressure situation and triumphed. With this in mind, I extended a hand out to the firefighter approaching me, expecting a proper congratulations or even key to the city for my heroic actions. As he got closer, I saw the scowl on his face. The firefighter stepped up close to me, looked me up and down, and snarled, “Why the f**k would you call us? We have way more important stuff to do than this.” I was stunned. My mouth was still wide open as he walked away. I looked around to see if anyone was going to say something to me, maybe offer some sort of apology, something that could explain what had just happened. But as I looked around, the firefighters all packed up their stuff and glared at me as they walked by, the R.A.’s went back inside, and my roommate was sitting on the curb with his head between his knees puking. The police officer, seeing the look of sheer shock on my face, said, “Listen kid, you did alright, but we don’t care about alcohol and weed. There is so much worse out there and if this guy isn’t dead or dying, it’s almost a waste of time.” I watched him get in his squad car and drive off.

As I heaved my 6’2″, 190 pound roommate up the stairs to our second floor dorm, I started to think about what had just happened. All the craziness and fear embodied in five words: “Why would you call us?” Why would I call you, I thought to myself, because the freaking bracelet told me to. The bracelet, a grim reminder of the tragedy that struck campus two years earlier in the form of freshman, Jeff Blake. It taught us that death is a harsh reality that can be realized in seconds, anywhere, to anyone — whether that be from a terrible accident or alcohol poisoning on a mattress in a frat house. This bracelet was given to students in an effort to make them aware of how to handle a situation like Jeff’s and how they can avoid it ever happening again. The creators of freshman orientation week have good intentions, but this solution ignores a crucial component to the problem.

Jeff not only died from lack of attention and fear of the students around him, he died from acute alcohol poisoning. He was eighteen years old when he passed away on that frat house mattress, four years under the legal drinking age. The fraternity provided alcohol and Jeff decided to drink it. If they had not peer pressured him to drink for some hazing purpose and if Jeff had decided to not give into that pressure, he would be in his senior year at college and looking towards graduating this summer. If he wasn’t put in the situation in the first place, the frat brothers would have never even been in the moral and ethical dilemma of taking him to a hospital and then accepting their legal and university punishments. But, if Jeff didn’t want to “fit in” so badly that he would make poor decisions, he would be wearing his suit under his cap and gown instead of in his coffin.

The issue on our campus isn’t the fact that students are unaware of how to handle alcohol induced situations, but the fact that students feel pressured to pick up the can of beer or shot glass and make the decision to drink it in the first place. I slammed opened our door, and laid my roommate in his bed. As I walked over to move the trash can close to his head, I caught a glimpse at the clock. It was now 4:08 AM. I shook the sleep from my head and positioned it next to his bed. Again, my eyes were directed to that blue exclamation point on my wrist. I couldn’t help but think of how flawed the wristband was. It is the proper steps needed to handle an alcohol poising situation, but wouldn’t it be better to eliminate the source of the problem? What has made us, as a society confuse settling for a short term solution more acceptable than solving a problem at its source? We don’t only apply this idea of giving into peer pressure and accepting poor decisions as the norm exclusively to alcohol. We use it to solve other serious risks that occur on college campuses. Giving into peer pressure has become standard practice in our culture; when societal practices become so normal that everyone has hopped on the metaphorical bandwagon, everyone on that float peer pressures the rest of the world to give into peer pressure too, and accept their opinion as normal. Our world has given us a lot of these lose-lose situations and we have come to accept the uncommon practice as normal. For example, on campus and in society, we have struggled with sexual assault and date rape for decades. As time goes on, the problem seems to be getting worse.

The National Institute of Justice & Centers for Disease Control & Prevention states that one out of six women have been victims of rape or attempted rape in their college years. Even more startling, 73% of rapes and sexual assaults were committed by a non-stranger (U.S. Dept. of Justice), someone the victim knew for a few minutes or even a few years prior to the attack! I know my, as well as my classmates, view of date rape has changed drastically in our few years on campus. “Are You DTF?: The Glorification of Sex in the Media and its Effect on College Hook Up Culture” written by a student last year details a friend’s experience of being raped by an acquaintance and how media has been a driving force in glorifying promiscuous and dangerous behavior in society. Her friend never reports the date rape, which isn’t uncommon: 60% of sexual assaults and date rapes are not reported to the police (National Institute of Justice). These stories are all too frequent as it turns out.

As we discussed this article in my Lit class, almost every girl said that they had heard of or been a part of similar situations. And while it is fair to say the media does glorify this awful behavior by encouraging drunken one-night stands, we must also see that these are personal, conscious decisions and we must accept responsibility for our own actions. We put ourselves in these situations. But instead of the author questioning her own behavior, she — along with a majority of our English class — just blows it off. She says at the end of her essay, “It’s a corrupt and emotionally damaging way of life, but hey, you can’t live with them, and you can’t live without them.” (5). She sees the danger and apparent flaws in her lifestyle choices, but is so caught up with wanting to fit in that she will accept these poor decisions as the norm and will give into the peer pressure around her. She, like most people in society, is willing to put herself in harm’s way every single weekend just to get on the bandwagon. It will all be worth it to be accepted as a cool person like every other partier in college. She will finally be exactly like what she sees on TV. She will have given into the peer pressure of being like everyone else. You can always get a new liver and recover from the internal injuries of a rape, but apparently, we think the wounds of being out casted will never heal. Although it may seem like common knowledge that date rape is illegal, disgusting, and harmful, it still occurs.

So, how do we combat the issue? By making harsher punishments for rapists? No.

By going into schools and teaching children about the horrors of rape and sexual assault? Nope. By using science to figure out what triggers the brain to rape? Nah. We instead teach women to not dress or act in ways that makes them more “rape-able”. We teach women how to not be raped as opposed to teaching men to not rape. We don’t address the real source of the issue; instead we find easier and more palatable targets on which to blame these crimes. As a society, we find ways to escape taking responsibility for our own actions, and instead, validate our poor decisions so that we aren’t seen as wrong or different. These people are so caught up with being accepted that they will do whatever it takes, no matter how dangerous or even stupid, just to fit in. But, at the same time, they don’t want anyone else to think poorly of them for giving into peer pressure, so society glorifies the poor behavior, making it seem cool to be on the band wagon. They are finding other places to put the blame so they don’t have to take responsibility for their actions.

God rest Jeff’s soul, but it is a hell of a lot easier for his parents to blame their son’s death on three strangers who elected to not call 911 to avoid getting arrested, than it is to blame their own son for choosing to break the law and put himself in a dire situation. What happened to DARE programs and telling people not to drink or do drugs? What happened to virginity pledges and staying abstinent? I guess they went into that same box in the attic where all the old DARE shirts went when we grew out of them.

It was a fad. And just like all those DARE shirts and red wristbands; we grew out of it. In my middle school it was cool to be against drugs and alcohol! We all just wanted to fit and be accepted. It was what everyone else was doing and believed was right, so it was easy to give into the peer pressure to be accepted. That was what made it okay, everyone was doing it — it was the popular opinion. But, just because something is popular opinion, that doesn’t make it acceptable. Just because a behavior or idea is believed to be right, doesn’t necessarily make it the right thing to do. But, as long as we are accepted by the people on this bandwagon, giving into their peer pressure and doing something that isn’t right is almost worth it. We tend to justify our wrong doings because they are popular opinions–everyone else is doing it, so we should to. But that doesn’t make it okay; ultimately we are making personal decisions and need to take responsibility for that, good or bad. We can’t waste our time ignoring problems in society just because that is the popular opinion at the time.

A problem is a problem, no matter how many people believe it to be right or acceptable. I know that I don’t even remember what DARE stood for anyways, and I had about 15 shirts that I gladly wore to school everyday. I just wanted to be like everyone else. I didn’t want people to think I was different, or even worse, that they were better than me. When did we, as a society, adopt this, “if you can’t beat ’em, join’em” attitude? We are so caught up in wanting to appear superior, better than just average people, that we will do whatever society peer pressures us to do — whether that be drinking unsafe amounts of alcohol or putting yourself in a situation with a lot of risk. We just want to fit in. It’s what made Jeff take his first sip, it’s what let that girl bring that guy up to her room, and what drove her to put on shorter and shorter dresses every Friday evening. They would be a part of the “in crowd” and finally be accepted.

As long as they were on the band wagon, nothing was their fault. We are college now, training to be the next wave of critical thinkers and leaders of the world. It should be clear that just because an idea is popular, doesn’t mean that it’s right. It does not make a poor choice justifiable. As I laid in my bed listening to the sultry sounds of my roommate emptying his entire stomach into the trash can next to his bed, I recollected everything that happened that night: The way that I had been conditioned to feel responsible for my friends actions, the way I was treated by the emergency personnel, and the way our thinking has been skewed. In the end, we found out that my roommates BAC was .37%, .03% lower than Jeff Blake He was two shots away from being dead. If he had died that night, I would have never let it go, feeling forever responsible. But in hindsight, it wouldn’t be my fault. I believe that we are responsible for our own actions.

We need to stop this act of blaming others for our own mistakes. Just because an action, idea or behavior is believed to be a popular opinion, doesn’t mean that it’s right. At a school like ours, one that breeds critical and individual thinkers, we shouldn’t give into this idea of letting popular opinion control our programs. We should encourage students to be individuals, not to crave conformity. We shouldn’t give our students the tools to be accepted by society, we should give them what they need to be steadfast in their own beliefs. We can’t keep blaming others for our own mistakes. If we make the effort to try and give into societies peer pressure and jump on it’s bandwagon, we can’t pressure others into blaming the pavement for when we fall on our face and get hurt. It’s just like the steps to recover, the first step is admitting that you have a problem.

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When I first heard Katie Makkai’s slam poetry piece ‘Pretty’ (I am not posting it here – you can easily google it) I was conflicted. But then … no I’m actually not.

I can agree that Katie Makkai’s piece succeeds in showing her passion about a topic. I’ll give her points for soliciting an emotional response from her audience, which is what slam poetry is supposed to do. But I disagree with her premise and here is why.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with teaching my daughters how to apply makeup and style their hair, nor do I think there is anything wrong in helping them choose clothing that is flattering to their bodies. I don’t think there is anything wrong with encouraging them to maintain their bodies. I do the same for myself, because as a woman I like to feel pretty. There, I said it. I like to feel pretty and I don’t think there is anything wrong with letting (encouraging!) my daughters to feel pretty. Isn’t feeling pretty one of the perks of our sex?

Is there more to it? Of course! And it’s my job to make sure they understand that while it may be the outward that first attracts a man’s attention, it will be what she has to share on the inside that will hold his attention.

A mother’s job is to show our daughters how to be a beautifullydecorated gift that is filled with smiles, laughter and happiness inside. And coincidentally, my daughters have never asked “when I grow up, will I be pretty?” because they’ve been called pretty since birth.

Growing up I never once heard my mom mention her weight or try out a new diet. We ate a variety of food and had a typically stocked pantry that often included Twinkies or a bag of chips. I remember the day distinctly when I first compared myself to a magazine photo. I was a senior in high school. My bestie at the time made the comment “what I wouldn’t give to have her flat stomach” or some similar version in reference to the model. Huh? I tell you the truth, it had never occurred to me to compare myself to the advertisement. My mom, who was comfortable with her own body, was a stronger influence on my own self image than the borage of messages that Katie Makkai’s poem’s hurls at the listener. Let me repeat, my body image was largely shaped by my mother.

I wonder how Katie Makkai’s daughter is going to feel someday

when all the other little girls are allowed to experience prettypretty princess parties

but she is not allowed to attend. Will her mother’s poem actually solicit

a reverse affect for her daughter? Instead of saying

“you are more than this one word” will her daughter instead believe “she must really think

I am ugly since she won’t even let me attempt to be pretty”.

And just to be clear, I believe the most probable path to happiness and true fulfillment is for my daughters to be wives and mothers. To accomplish that task they will need to do the following:

Attract the attention of a man

Have something nice to say

The rest is up to them!

Sorry Miss Makkai- it’s an old saying,

but you have to get your foot in the door before you can seal the deal!

And while I too hope my daughters will be pretty intelligent, pretty creative, and pretty amazing…

they will also go on to be pretty fulfilled as a wives and mothers…with pretty kids, by the way.

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Since adopting a Red Pill view of the world, I am surprised just how hard it really is to find books and videos with strong male role models and to a lesser degree feminine/motherly role models. I’ve surfed Netflix many times (under the anticipatory eyes of my youngest kids) trying to find a movie that will not depict the boy as dumb, irrational, or in need of a strong female to get him going the right direction AND/OR not depict the girl as a know it all that can do it all on her own, or is very one dimensional … only to come up empty handed or end up trying to sell my son on another viewing of The Sandlot or maybe get them hooked on ET, again! … pretty weak! I am open to your suggestions!!

After some searching I’ve come up with a few book titles that look promising. I guess my older kids were somewhat sheltered from worldly influences since they were home-schooled until 5th grade – but the two youngest have the double disadvantage of living in a household with older teens while also being in public school. Buying these two books is a mini test run to see if our household (with the inclusion of Grandma) would be conducive to a home school environment. Both kids have asked “why can’t we do school at home like Big Sister did” and I have no good answer other than a lingering doubt if I could manage it while having Grandma living with us … and the TV on constantly and having to stop many times and help her with most anything you could imagine and still having to chauffeur the older kids around … so we’ll see how this goes.

Henry is still working a lot. My dinner did not materialize since our house was full of college, high school, middle school and elementary school KIDS – but I went with the ‘pink’ and surprised him Saturday night … and he was very blessed! I haven’t been brave enough to post part 2 of Red Pill Year in Review … You Wanna Put What Where?but what I will say is that the more feminine and respectful I am … the more take charge and alpha he is … so our sex life is HOT. I realize my word choice is poor, but that is really the only way I can accurately describe it!! And it’s always been good … but now … “oh MY!!” it is really good!

From Amazon … The Bible has a lot to say about bringing up your children in the “training and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4 NIV). Today’s generation of girls are growing up in a culture that disdains Biblical femininity and homemaking. Titus 2 describes the pattern and the content for raising up the next generation. “Mommy…Why?” presents a fresh look at an old concept…the concept of the “high calling” of wife and mother. “Mommy…Why” illustrates the blessing and privilege of this God ordained vocation. Your young daughter will gain insight into the how and the why of this special calling….a direct result of “the older women training the younger women” in a God glorifying way.

Since I’ve also been looking for ways to spend a little more ‘mommy and me time’ with my 7 year old, I am excited to begin reading this together and then also incorporate some time spent together in the kitchen. Maybe it’s because I also have older kids, but I am very aware of worldly influences manifesting already in my young daughter.

From Amazon … Young Jody adopts an orphaned fawn he calls Flag and makes it a part of his family and his best friend. But life in the Florida backwoods is harsh, and so, as his family fights off wolves, bears, and even alligators, and faces failure in their tenuous subsistence farming, Jody must finally part with his dear animal friend.

The Yearling came up several times as a good real aloud, especially for boys. I will keep you posted on how the mini test-run is progressing.

We want our son to be a boy and someday be a man. Sounds easy enough, right? Think again. OK, to be fair, I came into this “mom of a son” thing with ZERO experience or expectation of what makes a boy tick. Especially when you add in my background – a very controlling female role model in my mother; a very weak, beta-ized image of a man as seen in my dad constantly trying to appease my mother (who was often/many/ times Bat Shit Crazy; my own attempts at control in my own marriage (and yes, often that included Bat Shit Crazy moments and a long run on the hamster wheel) … Add in that our first 6 are daughters—and since our oldest is soon to be turning 21 – at minimum our 3 oldest girls grew up in the hey day of GIRL POWER – including the t-shirts and constant commentary of Girls are Better!

I don’t remember seeing any similar t-shirts for boys – either I wasn’t looking or boys (men) don’t feel the need to proclaim their superiority on their clothing?

Anyhow, by the time our son was born I had gotten the message that girls were well behaved and wanted to learn and excel and boys were, well just NOT. Not well behaved … had no desire to learn … not easy, not polite, not …. Anything that was similar to my daughters. When our son was very young – maybe two (?) I actually reprimanded HIM for complaining when his sister (18 month older) took away his truck. Yep I did! Because SHE was the princess and HE needed to be fixed … and if I didn’t FIX him I had already seen how ‘his type’ was treated in my daughters’ classrooms. Thankfully – just about this time, and I do consider this Divine Intervention, I stumbled upon some Red Pill references and then some Dd references and then had the moment described here and lo and behold Henry and I moved forward – for the first time in 20+ years.

OK, back to the point – We now saw clearly the obstacles our only son would surely face and we made a commitment .. and we have never looked back from … making sure our son is free to be a boy and someday be a man.

But oh how much easier it would have been to just raise a BetaBoy! We would get tons of support from educators – this is a true account of how one teacher (who is a really good lady who really loves kids) manages a class of 30 five year olds – who are sitting quietly on their appropriately colored carpet squares – and squirming ever so slightly – “ OK boys and girls, lets give ourselves a hug and calm ourselves down; take a deep breath and get ready to listen to what I am about to tell you” … or

“No, we don’t allow balls anymore during recess; it is just too dangerous (the ball in question is a kickball type ball)”.

Ok, no balls. What about running around on the playground?

“No, we prefer the kids don’t play on the grass during school hours (including recess) because they might get grass stains if they fall” …

Hmm, what are they permitted to do?

“ We’ve installed this beautiful, colorful play structure (at which point she pauses and gently shouts “boys, remember to wait your turn in line, everyone will get a chance to go down the slide”.

Wow, that sounds bad! A coach shoving a player; I buy it hook, line and sinker. Henry walks into the room and I express my outrage (our 2nd daughter plays D1 basketball so my protective mothering has kicked into high gear).

Wait – what? This can’t be the shove … This video is of a coach – saying, very clearly “do you want to play?” to a highly talented athlete. According to the newspaper this wasn’t necessarily the first time this very talented athlete had pushed his coaches’ buttons …

“Problem is that Montgomery wants consistent intensity, the ultra-talented Crabbe is not wired to deliver it, and this gets under the coach’s skin.”

So what happened after the shove? The player took a spot on the end of Cal’s bench for a brief minute before the coach put him back in, and then took over from that point on. He ended the game with a game high 23 points, 10 rebounds, 6 steals, 1 assist and 1 block. He had is first double/double of the season – he hit a season high of five 3 pointers. And they won – trailing by 15 with 16:01 – Cal went on to win the game 76-68 and the player (Crabbe) went on to score 10/23 points in the final 4 ½ minutes of the game. The situation definitely sparked Crabbe, who scored 14 points in the second half after the Bears fell behind 47-32. It also ignited the rest of the Bears, who closed the game on a 25-7 run. And since it is a conference game – with both teams entering the game with an equal W/L, Cal walked away 8-5 and USC 7-6. It was a needed win for the TEAM. After the game – before the coach got wind of the nonsense of PC … this is what he had to say

“Worked, didn’t it?” Montgomery said of the exchange with Crabbe. “Allen Crabbe had come down twice went to the wrong side of the court and his guy shot two 3’s. I was trying to get him going. Probably overdid it a little bit but Allen’s my guy. We can’t win if he is not ready to play.”

And the team won. So, what did the player make of the exchange?

“An emotional game was going on at the time and I guess he was just trying to motivate me,” said Crabbe, who also had 10 rebounds and six steals. “But everything’s fine. It’s under the bridge. He’s my coach, no hard feelings. We’re just going to keep moving on.”

I think Coach Montgomery made the right call. I see this exchange as an acceptable version of Man Up. This is from Ian Ironwood’s blog

When men tell other men to “Man Up” (usually) they are trying to improve the condition of the other man. In the Male Social Matrix men are generally encouraged to help each other like that as part of the process of turning a Guy in to a Man . . . or simply providing moral support for a difficult issue. While the emphasis in the MSM is overtly on competition between men, a long list of masculine codes, from basic sportsmanship to battlefield chivalry, are designed to mitigate that competitive nature by tacitly providing assistance to less-able men

The confrontation between Montgomery and Crabbe proved to be the tipping point of the game. The coach (Man #1) wanted the player (Man #2) to improve his play. And while the coach no doubt wanted (needed) to win this game, his statement above “Probably overdid it a little bit but Allen’s my guy” tells us he cares about this young man. He knows that if this kid is going to have a future in basketball, he needs the “ultra talented Crabbe” to develop “consistent intensity” to reach the highest rung of his potential. Or put more simply

When men tell other men to “Man Up” (usually) they are trying to improve the condition of the other man

Henry and I WANT our son to be pushed to be his best – and doesn’t it seem more appropriate for that shove to come from, well, another MAN?

So, the articles and the media attention about the shove have made me realize that it’s going to be a long, hard road to make sure our son is free to be a boy and someday be a man is achieved.

As an aside, our college athlete daughter had caught wind of the headline and had this to say … “I am constantly screamed at and emotionally manipulated by my female coaches and I never really know what they want out of me – at least Crabbe got a clear message – and he responded and they won.” She then wondered “I bet Crabbe is kinda embarrassed, I mean – he’s the best player and he wasn’t working hard and his coach called him out and now his coach is getting bad media. And he’s probably thankful he did call him out and it’s a good thing for Crabbe that he did turn it around because if they would have lost, the papers would have written for days about Crabbe letting everyone down.”

But as it stands, the coach has now apologized, the school AD has expressed her outrage and the media is shocked that this could have happened. I guess on the positive side, the up and coming generation of current kindergartners probably won’t turn into ultra competitive ball players, but instead will one day be stars in the cut throat sport of “Turn Taking” – sure to make D1 programs at a local university near you soon!

I wanted to pass along a few links … the first is a video by Jenna Marbles!!

Yes she uses a lot of offensive language (F word!) but I think it’s really worth it to see a 20 something girl express her outrage at the UNFAIRness that is so prevalent in today’s society. Go girl!

Next up is Ian Ironwood, over at The Red Pill Room …Girl Game: Extend An Invitation. It is long, but really worthwhile. It addresses (from a male /husband/ perspective) something that is often mentioned … “how can I help my husband be the leader?”. If you have time, search around on Ian’s website because he has A LOT of really good insight. The post about the term Man Up will never be used again after we read Ian’s post! Really Good!!

And finally, anther male blogger that I’ve learned a lot from is The Private Man … I particularly liked this post titled Describing The Feminine. As the mother of 6 daughters I find articles like this one informative and a good reminder that it is through attracting a man that my daughters will hopefully be able to experience all that their femininity affords them…or put another way, by being comfortable with their own femininity, they will likely attract the sort of man that will make it easy for them to grow within their femininity.

I am working on post about how it’s been adding Grandma into the mix and how Henry’s new job is also shaking things up; to say it’s been an easy couple of months would be a huge understatement! To say that I am succeeding in my submission or that ttwd is easy right now would also be a big lie! Nope! No easy peasy right now … but that post is still too raw.

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This past weekend, we cared for my friend’s 5 year old daughter. She was with us from Thursday night until Sunday night. It was interesting to see my son interact with this little girl, nicknamed FutureFem.

In our house, we try to establish rules of order based on simple fairness. We do not artificially handicap our 6 year old daughter, thus providing a need for our 5 year old son to cater to her made up disability. For example, if the two are rough housing and Boy accidentally hurts Girl – we let the situation play out before we jump in and rescue our Girl (and often we do not jump in at all). What is funny is that she will usually try to be rescued before remembering we are not in the rescuing business. Now if Girl accidentally hurts Boy – he will run to us to proclaim the great injustice that has resulted in a minor bodily injury. Again, we refrain from intervening most of the time.

So you have a bird’s eye view into our family dynamics … enter our weekend houseguest whom I have nicknamed FutureFem. A little background on her life … both parents work at time consuming jobs; in their home, mom is the leader and dad is somewhat invisible. FutureFem is somewhat bossy and very opinioned. But … she is 5, so I usually choose to see her as just another kindergarten cutie. And then she stayed with us for 3 days.

Let me set the scene; the kids finish lunch and I suggest they go outside to jump on the trampoline … Boy leads the way, but FutureFem hangs back, taking her time. Finally FutureFem notices Boy is about to take his turn jumping. She takes off in a mad dash to climb on the trampoline ahead of him. Now things get interesting!

“Let me go first” FuterFem said with extreme confidence in her statement.

“Why? I got here first” replied my confused 5 year old son, Boy.

“Because I am a girl and girls always go first” she again, proclaimed with a little indignity and eluding confidence.

“No! The first person to get here goes first” and once again, Boy makes an attempt to establish the rules of order in a logical fashion.

“I am telling your mom, GIRLS are always first because we are GIRLS and you have to let ME go first” at this point they both run towards me – although I have been eavesdropping the entire time.

When confronted, I explained to FutureFem how the rules of play work in our house. She listened and then said “It is not good manners for Boy to go first”

I asked her what about it was rude and why she needed Boy to wait behind her. This is her reply …

“Boys are stronger than girls and girls are princesses so they have to go first. If Boy goes first I will feel bad cause then I won’t be the princess”

“Well, I don’t care … the PRINCESS always goes first” a slightly off her game GIRL replied.

And there you have it, out of the mouth of 5 year old FutureFem – I don’t care … the PRINCESS always goes first.

Our 6 year old daughter is an alpha – she is a natural leader and super competitive. Our son is easy going and logical. We have remarked more than a few times that left unchecked, she would probably single handedly cause our son to enter his teens as a bona fide BETA.

Our parenting approach is to try and keep in mind this … more than anything we are preparing these kids to be future adults – and as such raising a FutureFem and a BetaBoy won’t set up either kid to be a successful adult. Left to her own – our dear FutureFem would likely end up in a female dominated, power struggle marriage (that is assuming she even gets married) and miss out on the freedom her femininity brings and also the fulfillment found in being a submitted wife and mother. And BetaBoy would likely be drawn to a woman similar to his sister and spend the rest of his life feeling guilty, shamed and humiliated for any innate MASCULINE thoughts or desires. And that assumes he stays married – which is unlikely so more probably he will share ½ of his paycheck with his X for the majority of his working life.

Now Henry and I do not have all the answers, nor do we understand where this red pill parenting rabbit hole will lead us. All we really know (from 20 years of firsthand experience) is both scenarios are dead ends and we want more for our dear kiddos!

I found this article very interesting. I became a Stepford wife and saved my marriage. I’ve pulled out some key parts, but I encourage you to read it in its entirety. It drew a lot of parallels to my own life/marriage and how we’ve been able to incorporate the philosophies of ‘surrender’.

Ellen says: ‘More and more women are working, becoming CEOs of companies and gaining status in the work world. It is very hard for them to come home and be a feminine person and a wife, and be loving and soft and caring – they just come home with this boss attitude instead.’

No, I have not worked since we have had kids, but the transition from being the CEO running a large family into Henry’s wife is similar.

When I first began surrendering to Henry, in seemingly small and insignificant ways, our 17 yo daughter was visibly uncomfortable. The contrast between Liz pS (preSurrender) and Liz PS (PostSurrender) is night and day and her reaction both amazed and saddened me.

But I didn’t actually realize just how much my behavior had affected the whole family until I gave in to Ali for the first time, and both he and Yasmin started to cry because they were so happy and relieved.’

Our house, our kids have benefited numerous ways from my shift into a Surrender Wife. A great thing about kids is when you start missing the mark, or more simply, when I slip back into Liz pS, they are not afraid to say something, even if it is painful to hear! Last week our 5 year old son said “Mommy, if wives always yell at the dads then why do the dad’s want to come home? Why don’t the dad’s go play instead of getting in trouble?” Hard to hear, yes. But it showed how far we had come because a year ago, me yelling at H would not have anyone batting an eye.

So it is not for lack of compelling positive reactions that make the Surrendered Wife road the right choice for me, but Karen says it well;

‘I have been raised as an independent woman and the Surrendered Wife movement goes against everything I’ve stood for.

Yep! And everything society tells us we should want.

‘But, incredibly, it has saved my marriage.

Mine too!

I don’t do more housework – I do less, because Ali is so amazed to be thanked so nicely for every small thing he does that he has started loading the dishwasher for the first time in years.

‘Before, I would just have criticized him for putting the dishes in the wrong way. He is so thrilled with the “New” Karen that he even told me to sit and watch a film the other night so he could do the ironing.

As I willingly defer to Henry’s leadership I too find that he is self motivated to do the small things that I probably nagged him about NOT doing for years. pS Liz was very concerned in making sure H did ‘his fair share’ and it caused many hurt feelings and unfulfilled expectations. Post surrender, we’ve even had an occasional tiff when he’s tried to clean up the kitchen after dinner and it only serves to make ME want to see HIM relaxing after HIS day at the office. What am I to do? Well, I am not sure of the correct answer, but once I insisted I would clean up; and once I submitted myself to his desire to bless me and he cleaned up. Either way, it turned out as a win-win.

What has become apparent to me in the chaos of the last 6 weeks is Henry’s willingness to engage and lead US back onto solid ground.

‘He appreciates there is a closeness between us that we had lost.’

Liz pS used to be the one trying to fix our marriage with whatever ideas Redbook or Self suggested. Now looking back I realize I was trying to change Henry into my version of who I thought he should be. The problem with that is I really didn’t know who I wanted him to be and in hind sight – the man I married 20 years ago, the man who could run his own life and handle anything – the man I tried to beat out of Henry is the man I NEEDED him to be and Redbook offered no advice to get HIM back.

Ali himself – a husband so henpecked he still bears mental scars – agrees his wife’s change of character altered the dynamics of their marriage dramatically

I guess this post is more about reminding myself to make the internal choice to stay focused on what is really important for me, our marriage and our family to live in harmony.

Just as I believe ‘Love is not a feeling, it is a Commitment’ going forward I want to remind myself that likewise “Submission is not a feeling, it is a Choice”. Because in the end, it is all about the choices we make.

I’ve learned so much about myself and women in general from reading blogs written by men! One thing some of my favorite manosphere bloggers do very well is give context to behaviors – which in turns makes it very tangible to see and understand. A great example? The term Rationalization Hamster.

The Private Man wrote a great post where he describes the “Rationalization Hamster” in detail. It is basically an “analogy for the thought processes used by women to turn bad behavior and bad decisions into acceptable ones to herself and her friends” … hmm, I’ve never done that, have I?

As the mother of 2 college aged daughters, who until recently were fed popular feminist beliefs by yours truly, I was more than a little curious about how my daughters might utilize their rationalization hamsters to justify bad behavior. Below is a summary of a conversation I had with our oldest while she was home from break.

Basically Elizabeth relayed to me a ‘situation’ that had unfolded on New Year’s Eve for one of her sorority sisters, mind you our daughter was at home (with us) on New Year’s Eve). We’ll call this sorority sister BD (for ‘historically makes Bad Decisions regarding her own behavior with boys). It seems BD had downed 4-5 shots of tequila within the hour (I am told this is not uncommon behavior among girls – so they don’t drink a lot in front of the boys and b/c the boys have ‘handles’ that taste bad!) and then proceeded to go with her friends to a Frat House party. At some point, a boy strongly suggested he and BD hook-up; BD did not necessarily want to hookup and she wasn’t giving the ‘go ahead’ signal. But boy didn’t pay attention and ‘yada yada yada’ it went further than BD wanted.

Now as a mom of daughters (2 in k-8, 2 in high school, 2 in college) I will always hold the line that “no means no”. Some would say this is my Rationalization Hamster at work, but for me – coming from a place of very limited sexual experience before marriage – if I said ‘no’ (or in any way indicated NO) I would have fully expected cooperation and for the boy to stop pressuring me into whatever.

But as I expressed my outrage to my daughter about her friends plight, my daughter, without emotion simply said …

“Mom, whether she was giving the go ahead signal or not, the mere fact that she downed 4-5 shots and then went to a Frat party is her willing participation in the hookup that followed”

and she continued

“There was a 75% chance she’d be hooking up – she knew it and the boys that attended the Frat party knew it – if she feels bad or violated now it is only because she is shrieking responsibility for her own actions”

Wow. I did not expect that from my daughter. Now mind you, she was very sensitive to BD and truly wishes the events of the evening didn’t transpire – she just didn’t buy the spin that BD’s hamster was selling.

A few more thoughts as a mom – both of our daughters attend college about 6 hours away from home (in different directions!). I am aware that whatever social media or random pictures I might see could be completely censored for my eyes – so instead I depend on the depth of our established relationships and frequent interactions to get a feel for what decisions my daughters are making when away from home. Our Elizabeth is a very attractive, socially connected young woman – who is very comfortable with herself and with boys. I was more than a little impressed at her willingness to hold BD (and herself (?)) personally responsible for how a situation can unfold.

I have another post that I am working on, Rationalization Hamster, part 2 where I am going to discuss how this same daughter is comfortable using what Feminist thought they were fighting for in a completely unintended way. Stay tuned!